Hackers keep devising unique new ways to circumvent traditional anti-virus/anti-malware software but with a secure boot process, it becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to gain malicious entry into a system. The bootloader is the first code that is executed after the board is powered up. The bootloader performs initialization of low-level hardware like clocks, memory, communication etc and is therefore highly coupled with the hardware. A boot process is considered vulnerable when bootloader attacks use the boot process itself to load malicious code masquerading as a legitimate operating system, prior to the loading of the real OS. The secure boot process is a way to prevent such attacks to the system before the bootloader is started and to ensure that the bootloader and kernel code are from trusted sources. Continue reading Qualcomm® Secure boot Prevents malicious software from loading during the system start-up process of Inforce platforms→

On Tuesday, Inforce Computing was featured at the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ for Embedded Community event in San Francisco where they announced the availability of the Snapdragon 410E and 600 embedded processors.These processors were specifically designed for IoT and embedded applications.Whether you are a global OEM or a maker working out of your garage, the Internet of Things is the future. We will soon see millions of devices communicating with us and each other in every aspect of our lives. And the best part, Qualcomm has committed to supporting these processors for at least 10 years which is great news to IoT and embedded application developers.

In a previous blog, we spoke about the need for high-performance computing at the edge of the network for a video analytics IoT use-case. We will continue along the same vein in this article, but will look at the transformation happening at Industrial IoT in the asset tracking, monitoring, and maintenance marketplace. While this is an extremely broad subject with thousands of use-cases, we will make an effort to look at it from an Industrial IoT perspective with a few examples.

Why is asset tracking important?

Most companies that have their valuable assets distributed over a large geographical area have to contend with a host of problems that affect their productivity, operational efficiencies, staffing, costs, and ultimately their bottom-line, among other things. These issues could manifest in the form of poor health of their assets, theft, pilferage, damage due to natural calamities, underperformance, safety, productivity, counterfeiting, leakage, excessive pollution and carbon emissions to outright loss of perishable goods, and the list goes on and on. In the past, there haven’t been cost-effective ways to monitor these assets to be able to take timely and corrective action or act on deep insights for better outcomes. Meaningful data collection has been quite expensive as well. Not anymore. Continue reading Asset Tracking: Industrial IoT Solutions for Improved Outcomes→

Welcome to Inforce Computing’s June 2016 Newsletter! In this issue of Inforce Insights, we’d like to share a couple of useful technical application notes and two exciting customer case studies (scroll down). What does enabling 3D printing, computer vision, video analytics, and space-bound free-flying robots have in common? All of these are powered by advanced Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processor-based Inforce Computing platforms [SOMs and SBCs]. Moreover, Inforce’s value added software and hardware design assistance services have complemented and accelerated product development in these cases.

Software and Product Updates

We’re close to having an upstream kernel Linux BSP release (Linaro 15.10 version) available for the Inforce 6410Plus SBC. Stay tuned for download instructions and release notes for the latest BSP. Once available, please log on to Inforce’s TechWeb and look for the product specific menu under the software tab.

For those that have been eagerly waiting for the Inforce 6601™ Micro SOM, we will be taking pre-orders soon. We thank you for your interest in the latest Inforce 6601 Micro SOM and your patience is much appreciated as we ramp up our manufacturing. In the next few weeks you’ll also be able to read about and download more technical details of the affordable and new Inforce 6301 Micro SOM powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor.

We’d love to hear your feedback about Inforce’s newsletters as well as your stories on building exciting embedded products based on Inforce’s compute platforms. We’re more than glad to share your success story in these columns, so don’t hesitate to write to us at marketing@inforcecomputing.com.

Have you been hamstrung by the limitations of vendor provided binary blobs for GPU drivers in your ARM-based embedded systems? How about having access to open-source embedded Linux graphics drivers to write your own graphics applications? If so, this downloadable new whitepaper from Inforce Computing might be helpful.

As you may know, Qualcomm Snapdragon applications processors have a powerful and in-built high-performance Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerating 2D and 3D graphics-intensive applications. In modern embedded system user interfaces, graphics is increasingly becoming important. Having access to an open source graphics driver enables generation of new widgets, new features, etc., and allows developers to recompile it.

Hope all of you have had a great start to 2016 after a much needed Christmas and New Year’s break. If you will be at CES 2016 this week (January 6-9) in Las Vegas, please do stop by the following Qualcomm® booths to take a look at Inforce Computing’s exciting Snapdragon™ processor-based compute platforms in the form of SBCs, SoMs, and development kits.